Musical Memoirs Visits the Murder Capitol
When I was an intern at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., my primary duty could be described in two words: Gopher Boy.
I’d be at the courthouse and some deputy D.A. would flag me down. Thinking I was being called into some grand mission, I’d stride to the person, only to hear him/her say, “Can you take this file back to the office for me?”
Now that’s invaluable experience!
But even as a lowly intern, I did have some power. The deputy U.S. attorney I was assigned to actually had me go through criminal files and determine which witnesses needed to be subpoena’d.
I was so stoked, I actually typed up the subpoenas myself.
Looking back, maybe it was too much authority for an intern. Because once I accidentaly sent a subpoena to someone not involved in the case.
Boy, was she ever surprised! But, hey — it was D.C. With more than one murder committed every day, odds were everybody in the city knew something about some murder case.
That was one of those years D.C. was labeled the Murder Capitol, and I got to see some pretty interesting things. In fact, one of the cases we were involved with had a big write-up in the Sunday Washington Post, the gist of the story being something like: Where did it all go wrong?
Fortunately, my time in D.C. wasn’t all about murder. When I heard the Who were going to play R.F.K. Stadium, I knew I had to be there. (That Rolling Stone cover above is from that same year.) So I paid a scalper 50 bucks and for the first — and only — time, I went to a concert alone.
The seats were crummy, but the Who were characteristically loud — even without Keith Moon, who had died before he got old. Pete Townsend did his trademark windmill on guitar, Roger Daltry swung his microphone around like a cattle rope and John Entwhistle was just going off on bass.
There’s a point in a show like this where the sounds, the crowd and the spectacle overwhelms you and you think: This is rock and roll, baby.
And it was.
Eventually, I returned from Washington and got rejected by just about every law school I applied to. (I guess you DO have to study for the LSAT –especially during a recession when record numbers of people apply to law school.) But if the internship didn’t get me past the bar, at least it gave me some memories. And nearly 20 years later, my my guitar case proudly boasts a sticker from that Who show at R.F.K.
Posted on November 26th, 2008 by Pat
Filed under: Songs in the Key of Life: My Musical Memoirs
I was about to move to Washington, D.C., in the mid-1980s. Until a chance encounter with a table full of Californians at Bullfeathers near Capitol Hill on a Friday night. It provided me a window into the life I was thinking of moving into. Work. It was all about work and working. The Capitol is full of young people there, but most were workaholics. It was too much for a contemporary with a degree from a West Coast state university. And that night steered my life in a completely different direction. Many people may admit that their lives were changed by bars and going to a bar. But how many can say that it was a positive experience? I can. Thanks Bullfeathers, I owe you. Incidentally, anytime I visit the Capitol, I visit Bullfeathers and feel good about that Friday night in April of 1985 and how I dodged a bullet.
Oh yes — Bullfeathers is a big one. I stayed in a house not too far from there. And, yeah — far too serious in that town.
Sounds like a lot of fun! Everybody should experience a line of work that is simultaneously fascinating and boring.
For me it was environmental science. In high school, I interned at the county Soil and Water Conservation District and spent most of my time mapping riparian zones. Very important work but not tremendously exciting.
(Side note about the Rolling Stone cover: The guy in the middle of that picture looks like he’s growing out of the other guys’ backs. Like a freaky plant.)
I love The Who but have never seen ‘em live. Of course, they still tour. But now that the band lacks 50% of its original lineup, is it still really The Who?
I caught that tour at Alpine Valley in Wisconsin. We had lawn seats and had a blast. Hard to believe we thought of them as old back then when they still rock today. I don’t have any cool stories to share about the music.
Oh, I just noticed the title more, I thought Gary, Ind was the murder capital.